Monthly Archives: January 2015

I started blogging in 2005. Looking back at my blog posts, I used to have a New Year poem posted but it seems the last one I posted was in 2008. That year, I posted a poem by Pablo Neruda whom I love and his TONIGHT I CAN WRITE THE SADDEST LINES stroked me right at the heart. But in 2008, I posted his poem LOVE SONG.

In 2007, I posted an excerpt from Wislawa Szymborska’s OUR ANCESTORS’ SHORT LIVES and the line “Life, however long, will always be short…” hits my G Spot. In 2006, again, it was a poem by Szymborska titled LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.

This year, maybe I will post one by one of my all time favorite authors, Rabindranath Tagore. This poem is from Gitanjali entitled GIVE ME STRENGTH. This poem is very inspiring.

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GIVE ME STRENGTH

This is my prayer to thee, my lord—strike,
strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

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In this new year of 2015 and in the light of the events of 2014 both personal and national, these lines give comfort and in daily struggles, always strive for strength to raise one’s mind high above daily trifles and always stay focused on the bigger picture.

The title to this post is only a proposal. But it is not impossible to pull off.

There are many types of board games in the world, from friendly games of animal husbandry to war games to very complex train games that takes 16 to 24 hours to complete. Besides Go which is the ultimate board game for me, I generally prefer board games based on the economic theme, basically involving investing in businesses, developing and building the business and reaping dividends whether in cash or victory points.

Another characteristic that I prefer is that the games has a luck element that the players can manage because in real life, luck really plays a big role but then again it is up to you how you manage the luck factor. Fans of Jim Collin’s GREAT BY CHOICE will probably be nodding their heads now. Luck can be in many ways, either by the dealing of cards, a roll of dice, drawing of player turn order or just simply by unintentional blocking moves of opponents. But ultimately, it is how you manage luck that keeps your head above water.

Of all the economic board games, my number one type are those in the 18xx series of train games, and of these I really like 1817 and the classic 1830 although 1830 can be really brutal. There are many 18xx games that are really well designed, such as 1846, 1844, 1856, 18Mex and 18TN. These are really magnificent games but they require a lot of investment both in time and also effort to learn. These games are similar to Go or Chess where the game rewards learning and improving. These are my ultimate economic board games.

After 18xx type games, my other top 5 economic themed board games are as follows:

1. Brass – I really, really, really like this game. A good balance of luck and strategy and very engaging throughout. Requires A LOT of planning ahead as well as short term tactical maneuvers. Brilliant game design.

2. Puerto Rico – This one has very little luck factor but the competition between players is huge. It requires you to look at market supply and demand as well as looking ahead of what your opponents are doing and then tweaking your strategy based on that.

3. Power Grid – In this game, you are a power tycoon where you bid for power plants, secure resources to fire your power plant, build a grid and supply power and then make money from doing so. There is an auction mechanism for power plants and thus you need to know how much to auction, if at all and also there is a variable market for resources to fire your plant and the prices will go up or down, thus affecting your operating costs.

4. Wealth of Nations – You represent one country and builds and develop an economy where you produce resources to be supplied to the world. The market price is determined by supply and demand and the area to develop is very limited, i.e. the land where you can develop is scarce and therefore players strive to acquire these land and block other players.

5. Vinhos – This is a new addition which I really like. The mechanism is clean and there are a lot of things going on in this game, from observing which vineyard your opponents build, wineries and hiring of enologist that are in limited supply, to what wine to export or sell and which manager you hire etc. Is really a very engaging game to play.

There are a few others that I am looking forward to playing, particularly Arkwright and KanBan. I have quite high expectations of them.

Coming back to the idea of a Malaysia Economic Games Summit, it is a possibility where Malaysia hosts a 2 or 3 day event where players play nominated economic games and then through several rounds, a winner is announced. In fact, to make it funky, the first game that every participant must play is Monopoly. I wonder if such a summit will be fun or not.

Perhaps also in conjunction of the summit, we invite speakers to talk about economic games development, real world economics and etc etc. And then there will be economic design game pitching for funding and also booths to market economic games, effectively making this summit a platform to announce new games or projects.

Until then, this is still a dream.

p/s: more information on the games mentioned can be found at the Board Game Geek website, one of the best sites I know, whether concerning games or not.